What to do with cold eggs???

[Sbowman11130]

So I have never hatched eggs before and thought hey this should be easy!! Not!!! My very broody buff Orpington was sitting on eggs for 16 days then decided she wanted to go to another nest box. When I found the eggs they were cold maybe 55 degrees F and I pitched them. Now that I did that I read up on the eggs and some people said they have hatched them with incubator after. So my question is how long can eggs sit that had a broody hen sitting on them last without a hen on them? I do not have an incubator but saw someone say they put eggs under a heat lamp and turned them themselves. Is it possible to hatch them yourself without incubator?

 

[sourland]

Depending upon how cold eggs get, they may very well remain viable. You could have put her back on the eggs or moved them to her new nest site. Switching nest sites happens relatively frequently.

 

[Yardmom]

I accidentally locked my broody off her nest last summer (60 ish degrees day). She was off between morning chores and evening chores. Eggs were about half way along She had a 100% hatch rate

 

[MROO]

So I have never hatched eggs before and thought hey this should be easy!! Not!!! My very broody buff Orpington was sitting on eggs for 16 days then decided she wanted to go to another nest box. When I found the eggs they were cold maybe 55 degrees F and I pitched them. Now that I did that I read up on the eggs and some people said they have hatched them with incubator after. So my question is how long can eggs sit that had a broody hen sitting on them last without a hen on them? I do not have an incubator but saw someone say they put eggs under a heat lamp and turned them themselves. Is it possible to hatch them yourself without incubator?

If you come across that situation again, warm them up in your incubator and candle them when they're back up to temp. As paramedics are fond of saying, "They're not dead until they're WARM and dead."
I had a broody abandon a nest a little less than halfway through. She had settled in a far, dark corner and I only saw her off the nest when I went in at feeding time. I noticed her out one morning, just chillin', and checked the eggs. They were cold (we had a very cool early-Spring,) broody-poop-covered and scattered all over the corner. It looked like they'd been that way for a while- several days, at least. I beat myself up for not checking sooner, but moved the cleaner ones to the incubator, "just in case." The eighteen original eggs are now seven healthy six-week-old Nankins. Not a bad hatch rate for "dead" eggs!